Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Do You Want to Die in the Slavering Jaws of a Zombie?

I write #TwitterFic - micro-fiction with a twist. Your username is combined with a short story, typically one involving the Zombie Horde that has swept the world. In 140 characters or less, I feed you to the zombies. Sure, I tell a few other stories as well, but normally it's the Zombie Horde.

If you want to die in the jaws of a zombie, catch me on Twitter @DianaTrees, and I'll do my best to carve you up into scraps for the undead.

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When he saw @StevenKonkoly thought him a zombie. After all, Konkoly reasoned, Steven was from Jakarta - ground zero for the Apocalypse.

When he finally found @JillyJameson was too late. Jilly had been bitten, and she was now the Queen of the Zombie Horde.

Though gentically engineered to fight the zombie plague, @theSYNGENOR developed a conscious, and chose instead to join the horde.

When she came face to face with the @ZombinaNora forgot the first rule of silence, and screamed her way into the femme Zombie's gullet.

Solomon Calumet Petrof shortened his given name to @SoCalPete, but the zombies found him just as tasty roasting under the sun of California.

We found our missing socks behind the couch where the @ZombieIrishGirl had hidden, waiting patiently for our arrival.

The Zombie Apocalypse was losing steam, until the undead found the @BrittsBeachClub and had a feast of the young lovelies.

Though Shaun's movie was the one to make it big, it was @DavidoftheDead_ that exposed the legion of animated corpses.

When at last she found the @poet_teresa paused to savor her victory. Unfortunately she waited too long and the poet was eaten by the horde.

Rebecca thought the EvilChair the ultimate in violent things. But when she was thrown by the @CreepyWalker, she realized a new horror.

We thought @SoniaCharming1 until we discovered that all who crossed her were buried in the backyard.

Jenny had @dreamsofwriting that haunted her sleep. So too, did a vampire. Now Jenny dreams of the sun.

When Daneen found @LilDannyTaylor loitering at the fringes of the Zombie city, neither of them realized their lives would violently shift.

When life diverges, and I'm faced with two or more paths, I always choose the one that's soaked in @Rubyviolence.

He loved her enough that he called her name twice: @GerettaGeretta! It was the second sounding that caught the zombie's attention.

Few people realized that Grim was not his real name. But @PeterJReaper didn't strike the same fear into hearts as his chosen moniker.

As the movie was @RatedRLilStar asked Mayv if they could see something else. Unfortunately, the theater they chose was overrun by zombies.

No one expected a zombie-produced movie to do well, so it surprised the living that @TheRevenantFilm grossed billions.

I knew that Apocalypse had reached its peak when the @ZombiePuppets cut their strings, and ate the puppeteers.

When he was certain he captured the @SoulEaterWolf snapped shut the trap. What Wolf didn't realize was that the PeopleEater was behind him.

Ivin found the @Authopublisher software handy in producing ebooks. But he didn't know that the developer was the author of the Necronomicon.

As a @pseudohumanist Michael expected to fool the horde. But Michael didn't realize that zombies don't think, they eat.

We wanted to bury John somewhere on the @westlawns. But as a zombie, we had to set him free.

Exhuming @RenWarom proved to be their undoing, as it released MangaFusion - a mind fuck that ripped the thin dimensional fabric to Umwelt.

"We must find @a_greenwood," Alex said. "It's only in nature's purist place that we can reverse the Armageddon spell."

When the day was not @TypicalLydia put on her NightFace. For it was only in darkness that Lydia could face the daylight.

The spell wasn't complete without @BlueSleighty's poetry; the obsession it created brought the zombie horde to its knees.

Jeffrey had never seen a @Klingorengi before, and would have otherwise thought mating twixt Klingons and Ferengi impossible.

As a @ZombieAldous thought life perfect as he did little but eat and sleep. But after seeing a zombie babe he realized something was missing

Muttering the ancient @Daezarkian spell to turn the night to BloodSkies, Steven then turned back to his supper of long pig.

When the Zombie horde swept over @LA_Tafe turned his attention East. What Tafe didn't know was that the East was the Zombie stronghold.

It was the @HorrorShockLoli found most disquieting. But there was more violence to come when Loli discovered the blood-spattered doll house.

When I was a kid I loved the classic vampire stories. As I grew up the stories changed until these days, they’re all about eternal love and how best to woo the heart of a teenage goth chick. Or, as Diana Trees puts it, they’re sparkly. In short, I have come to hate the vampire novel with a passion that rivals the depths of the emo self-pity felt by the average character in said books.

With that said, I happened across Diana Trees on Twitter and was immediately taken by the blurb on her account: “Vampires do not sparkle. They eat people.” How could I not dig deeper after reading that?! And so I did – for $.99 it was worth taking the risk.

I’ll admit I wasn’t sure right off the bat. The story felt a little odd at first, but not in a bad way. It had a nice flow to it and other than 1 or 2 exceptionally minor typos near the end of it, I was very satisfied with the mechanics of it. Sadly that is a rare thing in most interdependently published books, I’m sure even a few syntactical errors exist in some of my own books and those went through a publishing company.

The only problem I had with the book, if you can call it a problem, is how difficult it was for me to establish a rapport with the main character. After all, the main character is a vampire in a more traditional sense. She thinks and feels but she doesn’t pine away for some long lost love who has just been reborn into his or her great great great grandson’s body. The main character feels alien and vicious – and rightly so. Near the end I saw a bigger glimpse into her personal life that opened her up some. It was a good thing that showed character development. It made her feel a little more human without reducing her to glitter and sparkles.

Loved the introduction of some other supernatural beings without reducing it to the same old vampire vs. werewolf crap too. A fine job, Ms. Trees!

But there will be blood – and lots of it. Divine Wine does not lack in the blood and gore fest. I even contacted the author to mention I enjoyed her extremely gory book and she told me she appreciated the feedback and assured me I wasn’t to worry, the next one she’s working on has even more violence. Tuck the kids to bed and read it with the lights on and the doors locked!

It’s a novella and something I finished in a few minutes while waiting for the babysitter to arrive. Get it on Kindle or Nook – I recommend it for anyone who wants to spit in the face of the current trend in undead romanticism!

The paranormal erotica and romance genres have bloomed in recent years, and as anyone will tell you, much of the fare offered up is... well, pretty bland. The werewolves are emo, the vampires sparkle, everyone has flowing tresses and wears a lot of lace. Then comes along Diana Trees with 'Divine Wine', and - joy of joys! - the genre is as it should be. 'This little book is a racy, edgy, gritty grindhouse story, packed with intriguing characters and sexy monsters.

'Divine Wine' a short, sweet and gruesomely entertaining novella depicting the twisted tale of two predators - one human, and one not. The pair engage in a game of cat and mouse around the grimy docklands of New Jersey, culminating in violent confrontations with gang-bangers, innocent bystanders, and a pair of (strangely adorable) bonded ghouls.

I'm not usually a 'vampire person', but I was caught by the vivid depiction of Atlantic City at its seediest, and was helplessly drawn into the story by its atmosphere alone. Diana Trees has excellent pacing and style that makes for a thrilling read, never giving too much away about the characters or the outcome of the book. While possibly too dark for some, its not dark enough to be inaccessible, and if you're after visceral sensuality - the kind found in 'Silence of the Lambs' and 'American Psycho' - you'll probably get a kick out of 'Divine Wine'.

“Divine Wine” by Diana Trees is a fun story for readers that can handle the anti-hero concept with violence taken so far it becomes comical. The lead character seeks out violent criminals and places them in a nightmarish situation with every bit of inhumanity, brutality, and beyond what they gave to their victims. This “Evil meets Evil-er” story, not for the faint of heart, gets the reader laughing as the outrageous creatures have their own agenda outside of human society and are more than happy to bring in new criminals to satisfy their need for entertainment. Congratulations, four stars!